Best Of All Worlds: This finale was custom designed for me, I think. First, both parties will now debase themselves in legal wrangling -- always a pleasure to watch. Second, Bush will likely take Ohio -- thus the election (and New Mexico and Iowa to boot) -- unless the Dems can finagle a very relaxed standard for including provisional ballots. Third, Kerry has pretty convincingly lost the popular vote, so he's toast anyway. For a party that has spent the last four years carping about an "illegitimate president" and giggling at "let's not elect him in 2004 either" slogans, this is a nightmare. They'll have to go the "big lie" route and claim, straight faced, that losing the popular vote most certainly does not deny a president a mandate.

Ain't we got fun?